Hejaz railway
The
1050mm gauge Hejaz Railway (also
Hedjaz, etc.) ran from
Damascus to
Medina, through the
Hejaz region of
Arabia. It was part of the
Ottoman railways network.
Although justified as a "religious railway" to aid the
Hajj pilgrimage, its true purpose was probably to cement the
Ottoman grip on the region and foster trade between
Damascus and
Medina.
The railway was started in
1900 at the behest of the Ottoman Sultan
Abdul Hamid II and was built largely by the
Turks, with
German advice and support. Another railroad which was under construction at the same time was the
Berlin to Baghdad Railway.
The railway is remarkable both for having had no debt when completed and for having many miles of track below sea-level. The initial declared goal of laying the tracks all the way to
Mecca was never achieved. In fact it never reached further south than
Medina, 400 km (250 miles) short of
Mecca.
The railway reached Medina on
September 1,
1908, the anniversary of the Sultan's accession. Unfortunately compromises were made to finish by this date, with some sections of track being laid on temporary embankments across
wadis. In
1913 a new station, the
Hijaz Station, was opened in central
Damascus as the starting point of the line (Damascus to Medina is 1300 km (820 miles)).
From its outset, the railway was the target of attacks by local Arab tribes. These were never particularly successful, but neither were the Turks able to control areas more than a mile or so either side of the tracks. Due to the locals' habit of pulling up wooden sleepers to fuel their camp-fires, some sections of the track were laid on iron sleepers.
The line was repeatedly damaged in fighting during the
First World War, particularly at the hands of the
guerrilla force led by
T. E. Lawrence during the
Arab Revolt. Following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the railway never re-opened south of the
Jordanian-
Saudi Arabian border.
An attempt was made to re-open the line in the mid
1960s, but this was abandoned due to the
Six Day War in
1967.
Two connected but non-contiguously operated sections of the Hejaz Railway are in service:
* from
Amman in
Jordan to
Damascus in
Syria, as the "Hedjaz Jordan Railway."
* from
phosphate mines near
Ma'an to the
Gulf of Aqaba, as the "Aqaba Railway."
|
Empty phosphate train at Ram station, coming from Aqaba |
Workers on the railway have restored many of the original locomotives. There are currently nine steam locomotives in Syria and seven in Jordan in working order. Since the accession of
King Abdullah, relations between Jordan and Syria have improved, causing a revival of interest in the railway. The train, however, no longer runs from the Hijaz Station but from Qadam station in the outskirts of the Syrian capital. In
2004 the Hejaz Station in Damascus was closed, pending a major commercial development project.
Small non-operating sections of the railway track, buildings and rolling-stock are still preserved as tourist-attractions in Saudi Arabia. Trains destroyed by Lawrence can still be seen where they fell.
In 2005, a
Landbridge project was announced to build about 3,000 km of railways, to link mines and ports and towns within Saudi Arabia, and to do part of the work needed to link with adjacent countries. While none of the new lines in the current project cross the border into adjacent states, several lines nearly reach these borders and in directions that head for useful destinations — so perhaps this could see the start of restoration on the Saudi section of the railway?
*
Hedjaz Railway, R. Tourret, Tourret Publishing, 1989, ISBN 0-905878-05-1.*
BBC: "A piece of railway history"*
BBC: "Pilgrim railway back on track"*
Extensive Hejaz Railway site at Nabataea.net* http://www.hejaz-railroad.info/Galerie.html
*
Transportation in Jordan
